Blogetery Closure Due To Bomb-Making Tips; Still Not Clear Why Entire Site Went Down

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the overreact-much? dept

Last week, we were confused as to why 73,000 blogs from Blogetery were taken offline due to some unnamed government agency, and now details are starting to come out. Greg Sandoval at News.com, has the latest, noting that the FBI told Blogetery’s ISP, Burst.net, that there were bomb making tips found on the site, and rather than just getting rid of that one blog, Burst.net (not the FBI) decided to take down the entire Blogetery account. Either way, as we noted originally, taking down all 73,000 blogs seems like a total overreaction — it’s just that the overreaction was by Burst.net, rather than the FBI (who didn’t even tell Burst.net to take down that one page — but just requested info on who had created the page).

Filed Under: blogs, takedown
Companies: blogetery, burst.net

Authorities Force 73,000 Blogs Offline?

Rumors, Conspiracies, etc.

from the that-doesn't-seem-right dept

TorrentFreak is reporting that a company, Blogetery, that hosted about 73,000 blogs, has been shut down by US authorities. Details are, admittedly, sketchy at this point, but the entire site has been taken down, and the company’s ISP claims that they had to terminate the account immediately due to the “request of law enforcement officials, due to material hosted on the server.” The ISP also claimed:

“this was not a typical case, in which suspension and notification would be the norm. This was a critical matter brought to our attention by law enforcement officials. We had to immediately remove the server.”

That seems odd. If there was problematic content from some users, why not just take down that content or suspend those users. Taking down all 73,000 blogs seems… excessive. TorrentFreak speculates that this may be a part of the recent Homeland Security efforts to shut down file sharing site, and points to some evidence that there were at least a few Blogetery blogs that shared copyrighted works. However, no one’s talking, and the ISP seems spooked, saying that it’s “serious”:

“Simply put: We cannot give him his data nor can we provide any other details. By stating this, most would recognize that something serious is afoot.”

I’m still wondering what could be so serious that the specific problems couldn’t be pinpointed? Taking down 73,000 blogs with no notice seems like overkill, no matter what the actual issue turns out to be.

Filed Under: blogs, takedowns
Companies: blogetery